Shout out to Marisol for using our software to get late payments removed from her credit report. If you have late payments dragging down your credit score, I know how stressful it feels. I remember the weight of opening my credit report and seeing late payments staring back at me. It felt like a permanent stain I could never get rid of. I thought, “Well, I was late, so I guess I’m stuck with this forever.” That belief kept me discouraged for years. But here is what I eventually learned. A late payment does not have to stay on your report just because it happened. If it is reported out of compliance with the FCRA standard, it must be permanently deleted. It does not matter if you really missed the payment — what matters is whether it was reported correctly and in compliance. Credit repair companies will never tell you this. They want you to believe you are powerless so you keep paying them month after month. The reality is, compliance is the law, and the law says you have the right to challenge inaccurate or noncompliant reporting. I have seen people with multiple late payments go from being denied for basic credit cards to being approved for prime accounts with rewards. I have seen homeowners lower their mortgage rates after late payments were permanently removed from their reports. The shift is real — you do not have to carry late payments forever.